That outlier, rLoop, is made up of more than 300 people from 15
countries who are hoping their collective brainpower can produce
the pod design Elon Musk will eventually select for his
revolutionary transit system.

The underbelly of the
rLoop pod, which uses electromagnets to levitate above the
track.rLoop

Following the June 2015 announcement of SpaceX's competition,
industry experts from NASA, Virgin Galactic, CERN, and other
engineering titans came together on the SpaceX subreddit wondering
if they had what it takes to craft a winning design.

The group that emerged called itself "Reddit Loop," but
eventually shortened it to just "rLoop" and quickly got to work
on a design.

That design — which will be presented later this summer at
SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California — is a
12-foot-long, 850-pound tube meant to safely and efficiently
carry one passenger across a mile-long track.

Lessard says the design stands out from the competition because
the rLoop team built the pod for full-scale use, which means in
theory it can hold more people and travel at
higher speeds. During the competition, tubes will have enough
room to reach 300 mph. In reality, the Hyperloop will operate
closer to 750 mph.

The pod also meets FAA regulations, Lessard says — a mandatory
requirement for any pod that eventually hits the Hyperloop track
for real.

"To the best of my knowledge, there's no other team doing
that," he says.

Musk's Hyperloop has been heralded as something of a savior for
mass transit.

While trains may offer affordability and flexibility, passengers
tend to complain about travel times. And airplanes, while
speedier, cost hundreds of dollars and tack on the added stress
of security.

The Hyperloop is expected to offer the best of both worlds, and
then some. In a
detailed announcement about the Hyperloop back in 2013, Musk
said a one-way ticket from Los Angeles to San Francisco could
cost as little as $20 and take only half an hour.

Such are the perks of traveling at 760 miles per hour on nothing
but a thin bed of air.

The inside of the rLoop
pod, which is made entirely from materials already in
use.rLoop

The teamwork required to get rLoop this far is very much its own
innovation. The rLoop team is made up of more than 300 people who
are distributed globally, store their data in the cloud, and
communicate via online chat platforms.

This past January, nine of the team members flew to College
Station, Texas, where they presented their design to SpaceX and
Tesla engineers at the Design Weekend Competition. They were up
against 119 other teams, mostly made up of engineering companies
and elite universities.

The rLoop team at the
Design Weekend Competition.rLoop

Today, they're just one of 30 teams that will be heading to
SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, later this summer
to take their pod for a spin on the Hyperloop track.

To generate some public excitement and supplement their private
investments, rLoop has launched
an Indiegogo campaign. The campaign will expire on May 6, and
so far, the nonprofit has raised just over $34,000 of its
flexible goal of $60,000.

Even if the team doesn't hit its goal, the private investments
have guaranteed rLoop will present a pod later this summer,
Lessard says — a point he feels especially proud of.

"That we were able to incite very qualified people from all over
the world and move the project forward has been an experience as
well," he says.